Liquid Stone

Liquid Stone - Chapter Five

I asked for time to rest and my searcher, mountain-man snorted and chuckled. I asked to use the restroom and he pointed to a bowl in the corner of the room. I passed on the option.  I was drunk with exhaustion.

"Since you're learning all about me, can I at least know your name?" I asked my interrogator.

"John Smith." He was gazing off to who knows what in the empty room.

"Well," I pried and pointed to the recorder in the table, "who is that watching us from the control room?

"John Smith."

"Gotcha." 

I guess making a personal connection for sympathy favors was out of the question. I ran with it anyway. "See, John," I tried to explain, "At this point, I didn't even know why I was hiding."

At first I thought Liam was gathering more wood or taking a morning stroll to sort out his thoughts.  Something I thought would do me some good, as well.  Then, I noticed our posh minivan was gone so I went ahead and ate breakfast alone.  I spent the rest of the morning sitting on the front stoop waiting for him.  It turned out to be hours of wrangling with my thoughts.

Had I really felt that rush of emotion last night? It seemed so natural at the time yet in the day, I was embarrassed. Even if I admitted my insides stirred by Liam's touch, it was silly to think his insides did anything of the sort.  This is exactly why I stay away from boys. Oh gosh. He's not a boy. He's a man.  A full grown, hot-bodied, sweet-smelling, to-die-for, man. Who was, by the way,  completely blowing me off by disappearing.

Still, I felt his gentleness. I wanted so badly to trust him. I wanted to tell him my parents were in that school.  I needed to tell him how scared I was that my parents were on some plane now being sent to Traitor Island.  I'd heard the stories.  It used to be a lush beach resort.  When travel for all but the extremely wealthy ceased, the island lost its luster and housed only a few hundred unemployed hospitality workers and native farmers.  As with everything, the UOS took it over and destroyed the beauty.  The new government feared leaving so many USA loyalist on home soil so they shipped them off to a new high security prison. Supposedly, there are no fences or walls but the indigenous insects were genetically altered to grow large enough to scare a vampire into pulling his teeth.  Well, I'm not one to listen to rumors but the thought of that alone would keep me locked in a room with no desire to step even a toe out. Anyone who  knows me, knows insects are not my thing.  I will scale the highest mountain or jump from a plane before crunching on a bug with my shoe.

Then, there's the guilt leaving Jamie.  It was up to me to take over his visits and his care. Stupid me had to take on the search for my folks. Did I think I was going to just waltz into the school, find them, and yell at them to come home? Well, no.  I thought I would find answers. And, I did. I was just too late so I got rotten answers.  My parents were gone.  Jamie was alone. I was on the run waiting for same asshole demi-god. Well, the asshole part was still to be determined.

Okay.  Enough feeling sorry for myself. I went inside and banged around.  In the light, I wondered what charm it was I had seen in the place the night before.   I questioned how long it had been since someone actually inhabited the cabin.  No matter how bad things had gotten, certainly people didn't stay in log cabins or brick houses anymore. Imagine the work involved. And, they always broke somehow.  If a family got a new baby, they might have to build a whole new room.  I can't think of a time without self-building, self-repairing cubes.  I saw pictures in history class of entire neighborhoods where houses looked the same.  And what was the purpose of the pointy roofs?  Well, my high school wasn't a cube collection. It was mostly glass with visible solar paneled walls but it was all one level.  You couldn't stack the rooms and they couldn't change the size if the size of the student body fluctuated from year to year. No one used schools until the UOS outlawed home schooling 6 years ago. I missed my school. I missed my home. I missed my room. Mostly,  I missed my eplate!